New Info On Velocity 2X: One of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita's Most Promising Titles

Of all the games announced at Sony’s Gamescom 2013 press conference, Velocity 2X was definitely one of the most exciting. I asked FuturLab’s Dave Gabriel some questions about the game and he was kind enough to respond. If one thing’s for sure, the game is shaping up to be a pretty amazing title. Keep reading to find out more!

One of the best parts of Velocity Ultra was its soundtrack, so naturally I wanted to know if Joris de Man and James Marsden would be the composers for Velocity 2X.

“Yes, James and Joris will be working closely on the new soundtrack. As with Velocity, the music for 2X helps set the tone and is integral to the design; we’re very happy to have Joris back so early in the production cycle. Velocity 2X will have a full soundtrack including carefully reworked themes from the first game, and brand new emotive tracks with higher production values overall.”

Normally I’d be slightly disappointed that tracks from Ultra are being included in 2X, but since they’re just so damned good I’ll let it slide this time. I’d definitely label some of the original’s songs as emotive, so it’s great that FuturLab is sticking with that theme for 2X.

The biggest surprise of the teaser was seeing the Quarp Jet dock and the watching the perspective change to a 2D sidescrolling format. I wanted to know if these sections would play in the fashion of classic platformers like Megaman, or if they would be more akin to a game like Guacamelee!.

Sadly, Dave wasn’t as revealing this time, “We are staying tight lipped about the specifics of the platforming gameplay for now. All we can say at this time is we are super excited about the genre blending, and more will be revealed soon!”

I’m extremely curious as to how these sections will play, and how the main character’s movement will handle as well as how in-depth combat will be in the sidescrolling portions. There are a ton of possibilities for these sections of the game ranging from simple puzzle solving to challenging combat rooms much like Guacamelee!. These parts of the game will most likely live or die by how they control, but I don’t think we’ll have to worry too much seeing as they’ve created one of the best controlling games on modern game systems already.

For a little more insight I checked out a post about the game on The PlayStation Blog. Among things that I’ve already talked about, there is mention of “Dual-format boss battles”, as well as graphical enhancement specifics such as “Particle effects, 60 fps on both platforms, dynamic lighting, and post-processing VFX”. FuturLab is coming into the next generation of gaming with their guns drawn it seems.

The last thing I wanted to prod Dave on was the graphical upgrade from Velocity Ultra to Velocity 2X. There’s no question that Velocity Ultra was a pretty game, so I asked if it was tough for FuturLab to find a balance between necessary improvements and changing things just a little too much.

“There’s a delicate balance to be struck. Velocity 2X will, and already does, have visuals in a different league to Velocity Ultra. We have incredibly talented artists and visual effects coders that will make the screen pop with beautifully drawn terrain, lighting and particles. However, everything is being created with the twitch based gameplay in mind. Nothing will be added that hinders the fast paced, core mechanics, which make Velocity so much fun to play.”

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Nothing will be added that hinders the fast paced, core mechanics, which make Velocity so much fun to play.

As long as the rock-solid gameplay from Ultra doesn’t change for the worse one bit from the graphical overhaul, I’m all over it. The pinks, blues, yellows, and even grays of Ultra created a beautiful and believable world. From the looks of the teaser trailer and the scant amount of screen shots that have been released, it doesn’t look like the beauty of the Velocity universe is going anywhere anytime soon, so there’s no reason updated effects should prove to be detriment to the finished product.

The original Velocity along with it’s shiny new HD remake are still some of the best games on the PlayStation Vita so it’s exciting to see FuturLab evolve their IP into something even bigger and hopefully better. It’s exciting to see that Velocity 2X will be making its way to the PS4 along with the PSVita as well. There’s no word yet on whether or not it’ll be a Cross-Buy title, but you can count on us to let you know all the breaking news on this title as it comes.

Velocity 2X is coming to PS4 and PSVita in 2014.

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